A Millennium of Mourning
by waterlit
Summary: How the world came into grief.
1. A Millennium of Mourning

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even this writing style. (see author's note for details).**

Starring: The Earl of Millennium

* * *

Death takes his wife away, and yet the ageless sorcerer prays to the god he hates, keeping faith like the devoted sinner he is.

He makes the decision to destroy all humanity the day he stands outside his hut, watching the gloriously hungry sunset. The sinking red rays of the dying sun stretch over the water, staining the swaying trees with deeply coloured blood. His heart throbs with a painful stab; bony fingers of filed shadows turn him inside out, outside in, and then inside out again.

Then he knows: blood-red the earth _must_ be stained, to pay for the sins of god, the way it was always meant to be.

......

_He_ thought he could try to recall the dearly remembered dead; _she_ thought the lightning that could unravel the dark was late. _He_ thought he could give sorcery a turn; _she _would sit and for the mortal earth yearn.

They were curious, in the beginning of time. _That led to their eventual downfall_, the Earl thinks. What easier way to descend from angelic glory to blazing hell than through disobedience? Those leaves his wife took to cover her naked self were the products of treachery in the unkind eyes of that abominable god. Even now, he still takes pain to clothe himself in layers of cloth. He will not have his wife die in vain.

_He_ thought he could argue with the god and win; _she_ thought she might live with sin. _He_ thought he could stop her tears; _she_ wanted to prolong those happy years.

But nothing avails, in the end, because everything crumbles into iron-red dust.

......

Men have never been content with their lot. Even he and his wife, the Earl remembers, the first man and woman without original sin, craved the forbidden fruit. That was how they fell. Even Noah, with his boat and children, let the sorcerer on when promised with boundless knowledge. Ahh, the power of the dark unknown. The Earl smiles as he recalls god's wrath at Noah's treachery. But the Noah genes still live on…

And the Earl lives still, despite the Great Flood, despite the innocence. _I am indestructible_, he thinks, _for I am the wind that blows and moulds new life. _

......

This man prayed with clasped hands for a sun-less dawn; that woman prepared for when the light fails. That man cried out for a dusk rinsed in blood; this woman dismally watched the empty sails.

The Earl knows their feelings. He felt them once too, once in a memory of haunting tears. He still feels them now, on days when the wind wails through dark skies and the piercing rain falls on misted shadows. He likes to take a walk on such days, _to make new akuma_, he tells the Noahs, but really, he likes the crunching sounds of the withered autumn leaves under his shoes. He thinks of his wife and his beloved Fourteenth as the moon dances behind those black rain clouds, dusting blood-tears on the world, and he too weeps, with transparent tears falling, mingling, with the earth's sad dew…

This man hid the dying stars deep in his chest; that woman begged for the night to end, sighing. That man never knew what pity meant; this woman wailed in the valley, her tears flying.

This one kept up a heart-wrenching keening; the sweet songs of nightingales twisted into the ghastly greying nightmares of once-lullabies, but now, her heartless hands strangle the living in dark alleys where the silver feet of sacred moonlight do not walk.

......

Men have never come to terms with death and decay. But there must first be death and decay before a new world can sprout into being, before the old, abominable god can be wiped out alongside his precious earth. The Earl knows this now, and he does not till the earth any longer, for destruction cannot wait.

But deep in his heart of hearts, he feels the change in the way the wind caresses the dying, drying earth, and he knows that victory has never been this far. He has to work hard for the apocalypse to truly come this way, for god's hand is at work again, interfering with his plans.

_Why must it end this way?_ But he will succeed yet. He has been a sorcerer for centuries now, and he is like the admirable weed; pulled out and discarded, he will rise again when the wind blows over the empty lands. The earth is his to take, his to weave dark spells never seen before under the light of day, for the abominable god has long left his tiny humans alone to turn to canker.

......

This man bent over with cold and stoked the fire with silent tears; that woman succumbed wordlessly to her numbing heart's pain. That man walked the hushed paths with grief-struck awe; this woman waited, weeping, in the bitter, tearing rain.

The Earl sometimes walks alone in the cemeteries, reading the inscriptions on the grave markers. And he wonders, as he reads those lines upon lines of poetry and quotes, if those left behind really did love those who left the way he loved his own wife a millennia ago. _Probably not_, he thinks, and this gives him the energy to carry on hatching his terrifying plan. _Humans are unfeeling, the exact image of him who made them._

This man tore the sky, not knowing what he had done; that woman draped her cloths, and quietly awaited the tide. That man waited, feet-tapping, for the sun to set; this woman, half-crazed, leapt from the mountain-side.

That one yelled for _him_ to come, although he knew the perils, but the long arms of the dead were wrapped around him before he knew what had come to pass.

......

When he looks into the fluid mirror, he sees himself as he is – _a skeleton waiting for the death that will never come_. He sees, too, and he knows.

The hearts of men, fashioned by god, do not deserve to know the sweet beauty of the motherly earth. They are products of god's impeccable nature, and they walk ever towards the end of the world, teetering on a slowly falling precipice. The apostles of god, those damnable exorcists, will not last long now. They cannot save the rotten hearts of men from bringing ruin to the world.

......

This man with the crooked eyes agreed to broker souls; that woman tormented dying leaves in the starlit lane. That man captured and murdered in the dark; this woman worshiped, though the evil in her remained.

Man has always let his heart wander far from the right path. _Evil begets evil_, the Earl announces, _and an eye has to be given for an eye_. He is merely fighting for the greater good. How could he have expected the Fourteenth to understand? But Road does. Deep in her dream-world she knows why she is fighting alongside the Earl. She is ridding the world of evil that has been perpetuated by the abominable god's hand.

This man laughed aloud and disdained the abominable god; that woman could not bear to cut those flimsy threads to her past. That man pointed his hook-like finger without shame; this woman waited as the years turned to whispering dust.

This one flitted through spring and summer, watering the wilting trees with her golden tears. But when autumn came, she wandered into dark caverns out of forgotten tales and found _him_ there, waiting, and released her voice to the red, red sky.

......

But at the end of the day, the Earl cannot wait to fall into bed and sleep a deep sleep, while the draught freezes his bones with tears shed by the hurting world. The Earl fills his heart by thinking about how his akuma will destroy the world, but even that cannot close the void. _I am tired_. Tired, of the world and the war. He cannot wait for everything to be over and done with, verily, as it will surely be.

This man built a cairn fit for a king to house his beloved wife; that woman did with the thin, cruel fingers of night douse them both. That man drowned the living without pity; this woman swore not to rest with her haunting oath.

And he visited them all. He had to. He wants the world to be good, with precious lilies and pretty peonies blooming as they did in the youth of the world, _in his youth_.

This man cried out when he sensed his end was near; that woman torched the town with millions teeming. That man counted with bloodied hands the teeth-like years; this woman scorned the sun and the moon and the earth, righteous-seeming.

That one falls to his knees in the cobwebby embrace of winter, and opens his mouth to scream as the earl floats torpidly down. He screams, "Mana!" and the Earl summons the man. But the boy kills the akuma instead, and the Earl runs when the redhead come charging in with his gun.

After all, there is a time to create, and there is a time to run.

......

But the wind blows again, and he can now taste fear, sharp and stinging, on the edge of the wind. The Destroyer of Time has come, and it will be a hard and bitter fight to the death. But somehow, death no longer seems to be dark and dreary. After millennia, it seems a good choice, actually. His wife is there, he knows, and so is the Fourteenth.

The akuma will die, and the rot of centuries will finally take root in the pitiful earth under the glorious sun, but the Earl can rest easy in the soothing embrace of his dead wife.

He can always laugh in the striking, cold face of Death, for he has waged a war under god's nose, and anyway –

– he is only human, too.

* * *

A/N: This was inspired by Empty Doors and Maple Leaves by Resmiranda, from the ATLA fandom. (And omg, i urge all ATLA fans to read it - it's so sublime and lyrical and beautiful). This was a long time in the making; i went through it over and over, searching for the best words to put in. Of course, i have to thank Resmiranda for very kindly allowing me to emulate her writing style for this fic - i could never have thought of it. So, thank you, Resmiranda! I made some changes to her overall style though, and of course i didn't copy the words she used, so this is probably less vivid and less lyrical.

Anyway, i find the Earl to actually be the most intriguing character. He has a very dark and mysterious history, most of which we don't know. So yeahh, here's to the earl! Ohh, and i hoped you liked the writing style. I liked Resmiranda's a lot - that's why i emulated it. (You know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - something like that). I liked the idea of having a rhythm, too.

So i hoped you enjoyed this as much as i enjoyed writing it. Reviews are appreciated (constructive ones are welcome too, no worries heh i'm open to criticism). Thanks for reading! :D


	2. Vanishing by Dawn

Thank you all who reviewed this chapter and the previous one :D

To Moonbeam: you didn't leave your contact email behind, so I couldn't reply you, sorry about that. I hope you see this haha. Thanks for reviewing, and also, I'm glad this managed to help inspire you to write an Earl-based fic. Have fun writing it! (:

Disclaimer: I own nothing, nothing, nothing at all (:

* * *

_You, dearest? _

_But you betrayed me… _

The piano plays out in stormy silence, and the Earl doesn't quite deign to shutter the windows. He sits stony-faced, his two laps wobbling and his bright eyes whirling. The fire sputters, the raindrops creep, the moon dips her head under the starry seas and in the dark room, the Earl mutters. And a long-lost language it is too; a tongue which speaks of lore and hidden memories long buried in black dust.

It is the darkest hour of night, when darkness melts into shadow and shadows walk under the starless slit of sky. In the room, the Earl broods alone, tempering grief with sorrow twice over.

_It is strange_, he thinks, _how the greatest stories are tragedies, and how tragedies are mostly borne by the wings of sweet, bitter love_.

When the darkness envelops the world, he remembers _her_, and he wants to rip apart the past and find the seed that sowed discord.

...

_We could have been happy_, he thinks.

He can see them now, a vision draped in tomorrow's fancies, he dancing, she smiling on his arm, twirling the night away. He might have looked like Tyki-pon, he thinks, for he can change his shape if he so chooses. And she – she would have been resplendent in the gauzy robes of today, her moon-like face lit up with a devastating radiance.

But alas, he is no Prince Charming and she is no cloth-clad-crowned princess, and such dalliances do not hold true.

The rain stops, and the thunder dies down. In his room, ancient pity walks with bent legs and feathery whispers.

...

They were lovers first and foremost, and they walked under the young canopies in the beginning of being.

She plucked golden apples (molten sunshine painted over with joy) for him and he gathered violet flowers stained the colour of a rainbow for her and both exchanged gifts with gleeful precision. There were no children (they had no children) to break the routine of their marital bliss, and she weaved her soul into his clothes and he chased mammoths to fill her stomach.

_Then came the sin-mongery. _

...

But now he awaits her memory with tea laid out in willow-patterned cups and the echo of her face in his eyes. The wind screeches with broken teeth, his bones creak in the long hours before dawn, and he withers deep inside where the darkness cannot reach.

With trembling hands he deals the tea and cuts the little scones and butters them with tears and sorrow, and butter gone mouldy.

She sits and watches him, in the chair that stands just at the periphery of the light. The long years are sewn into her eyes, and the pain is etched into her skin, but her smile is still the same. _Beautiful._

_Done._ He smiles and reaches out for her hand – pale, plump – and it shimmers in the first light of dawn.

"No!"

But the sun swallows her, and the moon removes her webbed lace from around the hapless shade, and the Earl is left alone once again, alone, alone, alone,

with just the slightest shadow of her going upon his cracked plate.

* * *

**The dewdrop**

**on a bamboo leaf**

**stays longer**

**than you, who vanish**

**at dawn. **

**(Izumi Shikibu)**

* * *

A/N: The Earl is fascinating, very much so mmm. He is the obvious bad guy, but who knows what he has suffered before he turned into the wicked sorcerer he is now!

I won't babble on.

So here's my latest offering, and I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews would be appreciated (:


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